The invention relates to an envelope-filling station for mail processing systems.
An envelope-filling station of this type is disclosed in German patent 10220908 C1. It contains an envelope-conveying device having an envelope-feeding arrangement that extends works essentially in the horizontal plane, approximately in the horizontal plane of the surface of an envelope-filling table, an envelope-conveying arrangement which follows this intermediate envelope-conveying arrangement extending at an angle relative to the conveying direction of the envelope-feeding arrangement, and a following envelope-advancing arrangement, whose conveying direction is horizontally perpendicular to the conveying direction of the envelope-feeding arrangement and is perpendicular to the inserting direction of an intermediate envelope-conveying arrangement that is located next to the enclosure-inserting station.
In the disclosed envelope-filling station, the intermediate envelope-conveying arrangement that is angled relative to the envelope-feeding arrangement and that is angled relative to the envelope-advancing arrangement is dimensioned and located in such a way that the open envelopes are conveyed to a position directly in front of the enclosure inserting station, and there the opened envelopes are aligned precisely in front of the inserting station in conjunction with an angle stop arrangement, whereby an envelope in the feed station is filled with enclosures or enclosure sets and is then transported away by the envelope-advancing arrangement after the angle stop arrangement is switched to an inactive status.
With the prior-art envelope-filling station, if, after a part of the angle stop arrangement is switched to an inactive status, the filled envelope is transferred to the envelope-advancing arrangement, a residual stroke from the inserting arrangement can be used for this transfer. However, if the filled envelope is to be transferred to an envelope-advancing arrangement that is located perpendicular to the insert direction, this transfer must be initiated by the further operation of the angled intermediate envelope-conveying arrangement after the deactivation of the corresponding part of the angle stop apparatus. This can lead to problems when envelopes are filled with a relatively heavy content and when there are unfavorable friction ratios between the upper surface of the envelope-filling table and the lower side of the filled envelope.
Moreover, with the prior-art envelope-filling station it can become difficult in the area of the angled intermediate envelope-conveying arrangement to arrange the conveying belts, which extend at an angle relative to the conveying direction of the envelope-feeding arrangement, and thus the hold-down means that work together with said belts and are embodied as rollers or rolling bodies held in cages, on the envelope-filling table in such a way that an envelope that is to be filled reaches the area in front of the inserting station in complete form, and at the same time remains accessible from above on its path, for example to correct problems.
Finally, it may be desirable to simplify the design of the transition from the intermediate envelope-conveying arrangement to the envelope-advancing arrangement that is perpendicular to the inserting direction of the inserting station.